The Apocalypse Solution Provider

Chapter 47: Restaurant

Central Avenue, Yingbin Restaurant.

The heavy steel rolling shutter remained bolted shut to the floor, the only illumination bleeding through the narrow slats of the blinds.

Inside the main dining hall, twenty-three survivors huddled in chairs, buried under layers of heavy winter coats and fleece blankets.

A thick, suffocating despair hung over the room.

They were local residents who had cracked under the pressure of confinement, venturing out into the freezing streets to scavenge for food and water.

None of them anticipated the predatory instincts of the Zombies. The moment a human head popped out, the horde swarmed. Fortunately, the rotting corpses lacked explosive speed, and Tan Hui—a manager at the Yingbin Restaurant—had risked his neck to hold the door open for stragglers. Without him, all twenty-three would be meat by now.

“Hot water’s ready. Drink up, warm your bones,” Tan Hui announced, moving table to table with a steaming kettle to fill their cups.

A few scattered, hollow mumbles of gratitude echoed back before the hall plunged into a heavy, deathly silence.

Hope was a dead concept. Deprived of sunlight and paralyzed by trauma, the abundance of scavenged food and water in the pantry meant nothing. Their will to live had flatlined.

Amidst the suffocating quiet, a scrawny rat of a man leaned toward his neighbor—a massive, hulking brute sporting a full sleeve of prison ink down his right arm.

The skinny man’s voice trembled with a pathetic whine. “Boss… I can’t do this anymore. I’m checking out. Just put the gun to my head and blow my fucking brains out.”

“Shut your damn mouth! You think I’m wasting lead on a piece of shit like you?” The Tattooed Thug spat. “Go chug a bottle of rat poison in the kitchen. We got plenty. Fucking useless coward. We wait for the thaw, then we grab some machetes, butcher those rotting meat-sacks, and rally up a crew. We get some real firepower and blast our way out of this city! We’re breathing, ain’t we? I ain’t rolling over to die in this shithole!”

“What crew? It’s just us two left, Boss…” The skinny guy wiped his snot with a dirty sleeve. “I swear, I’ll down the rat poison. But dying a virgin… dying like this… it’s a waste. Before I off myself, I just… I just wanna get laid one last time.”

“Get laid?” The Tattooed Thug recoiled, his face twisting in revulsion. “Who the fuck are you gonna fuck in here? Me, you sick bastard?!”

“No! Hell no! I mean… her. The crazy bitch.” The scrawny man pointed a shaky finger toward a young woman at the corner table, currently nursing her frail mother.

“I’ve been eyeballing her for two days. She’s the only one who ain’t completely busted… Boss, it’s crowded out here. I want to drag her into the back kitchen. I need you to pin her down for me. I don’t think I got the strength to hold her still.”

“What the absolute fuck?” The Tattooed Thug stared at him in profound disbelief.

He knew his lackey was a degenerate piece of trash, already cracking under the apocalypse, but this was a new level of psychotic.

He genuinely thought this out, and actually had the balls to ask his boss to be his fluffer and hold a screaming woman down?!

“You depraved little shit, are you clinically retarded?!” The Tattooed Thug grabbed the skinny man by the throat, hauling him up. “Look at the world outside! Our crew is dead, your family is rotting in the streets, and all you care about is emptying your fucking balls?! Is your skull filled with nothing but sperm?! Did a fucking donkey kick your brain in?!”

Roaring in disgust, the Tattooed Thug wound up and delivered a brutal, open-handed backhand that sent the scrawny man spinning into the floorboards with a sickening crack.

He looked up to find every single pair of eyes in the dining hall locked onto him in terrified silence.

The Tattooed Thug couldn’t have cared less. He slumped back into his chair and casually sipped his hot tea.

“Fucking animal.”

The teacup paused halfway to his mouth. The Tattooed Thug slowly shifted his murderous gaze to a bespectacled man sitting at the opposite table.

Squinting dangerously, he let out a dark chuckle. “Kid. Your name’s Yue Hao, ain’t it? Tell me… who exactly were you running your mouth at?”

Yue Hao adjusted his glasses, refusing to back down. “We’re all refugees here. Do I need your permission to speak? You kicked that door in carrying a gun. Judging by your stance and trigger discipline, you’re ex-military, aren’t you?”

The Tattooed Thug stood up, the chair scraping loudly against the floor as he cracked his knuckles. “And what the fuck does my service record matter to you?”

“If you want to act like a tough guy, go out there and fight the Zombies! This entire city is a slaughterhouse. You ate the government’s rations, wore the uniform, and yet I don’t see you on the front lines protecting anyone!”

“You sanctimonious little prick!” The Tattooed Thug laughed, a harsh, grating sound. He rolled up his sleeves and stalked around the table. “Whether I fight the dead or not ain’t your business, but I’m absolutely gonna beat the living shit out of you!”

“I might not be able to solo a horde, but I can definitely snap your neck!”

“Try it!” Yue Hao shoved his chair back, standing his ground without a shred of fear.

“Break it up, both of you!” Tan Hui, the restaurant manager, violently inserted himself between the two men, his face flushed with rage. “You want to scream and shout while there are literal monsters outside?! Look at what you’re doing to that family!”

Everyone’s gaze snapped to the corner table Tan Hui was pointing at.

The young woman, Ding Jia, had her arms wrapped tightly around her frail, shivering mother, her voice cracking as she desperately tried to soothe her.

“It’s okay… Mom, it’s okay. We just have to hold on. Once I take you to the aliens, they’ll save us!”

“That bitch has been clinically insane since she walked in. You think my shouting did that?” The Tattooed Thug sneered, crossing his massive arms.

“I’m not crazy!” Ding Jia snapped her head up, tears streaming down her dirty cheeks. “I’m begging you, you have to believe me! I saw them with my own eyes! The survivors from Planet Namek are here to save humanity! They have a spaceship! We just need to find a working car and drive to the Talent Residential Community! They live there!”

“Aliens living in a fucking suburban apartment complex? I’m gonna lose my mind!” The Tattooed Thug stormed over, grabbed Ding Jia by the scruff of her collar, and violently dragged her toward the shuttered window. “Fine! Let’s pretend your little green men are real! Look through the blinds!”

“We were doing just fine before your imaginary aliens showed up! Look at the streets! Does this look like a fucking rescue to you?! Snap out of it!”

“No, you don’t understand! The apocalypse was triggered by the Trisolarans! They dropped the bioweapon!” Ding Jia shrieked in absolute terror.

“She’s just fucking with you, Boss!” the scrawny rat wheezed from the floor, clutching his bleeding face.

“Trisolarans? You’re just throwing out sci-fi buzzwords now! Nice try, lunatic!” The Tattooed Thug hurled Ding Jia back into her plastic chair.

He spun around and delivered a brutal kick to the scrawny man’s ribs, sending him skidding across the tiles.

“Even the delusional schizophrenic is trying to find a way to survive, and all you want to do is rape someone and drink rat poison! Go find a quiet corner and bleed out. I’m sick of looking at your pathetic face!”

The violent shove had torn open Ding Jia’s heavy winter coat, exposing the uniform she wore underneath.

The Tattooed Thug caught a glimpse of the embroidered logo and froze. “…City Psychiatric Hospital…? Jesus Christ, I thought the apocalypse broke your brain. Turns out you actually escaped from the local loony bin!”

The crushing weight of the humiliation and misunderstanding finally broke Ding Jia. She burst into uncontrollable, heaving sobs.

She had braved the apocalypse specifically to beg the aliens from Planet Namek for rescue. Since they hadn’t contacted her telepathically, she deliberately wore her work uniform so they would recognize her immediately.

Desperate to correct the thug’s assumption, Ding Jia yanked her coat fully open to display the entire embroidered job title.

“No… I’m not a patient! This is my staff uniform! I’m a nurse!”

“So you’re a psycho who stole a nurse’s scrubs!”

“WAAAHHHH!” Ding Jia buried her face in her hands and wailed in utter despair.

In that agonizing moment, she finally understood the profound, soul-crushing grievance that Fu Qingdai had felt when dealing with Su Jin’s madness.

Tan Hui stomped back over, physically placing himself between the crying woman and the brute.

“That’s enough! I dragged you people in here from the jaws of death so we could band together and survive! And here you are, tormenting a mentally ill girl and her elderly mother! Are you even human?!”

“I’m not mentally ill…” Ding Jia whimpered weakly.

“Fine!” The Tattooed Thug threw his hands up in disgust. “Tan Hui, you’re a decent guy, so I won’t push it! I know you white-collar types look down on street trash like me, but I operate on a code of respect. You saved my life, so I’m giving you face!”

“But if someone tests me again,” he paused, shifting his predatory glare directly back onto Yue Hao, “don’t expect me to hold back!”

Yue Hao held the thug’s stare for a fraction of a second before his eyes darted downward, his voice dropping. “The old lady… she passed out. Is she breathing?”